Inburbing and The War on Wealth

As I write, I'm sitting at Stone Creek Coffee in Bay View, where a large-scale bicycle race is taking place outside. Fittingly, my topic this weekend is the two megatends from which, I'd argue, most everything else discussed on this blog follows. These are what I will call "Inburbing" and "The War on Wealth". Inburbing is the effort to attract more-affluent white consumers--particularly the most profitable subgroups, single young people and empty nesters--to urban and inner-ring suburban areas that would otherwise lay fallow and underutilized from an economic perspective. This effort requires not so much products and services as a state of mind.

Interestingly, the psychological technique used to reach more-affluent white consumer is what I think of as "Black Angus"--saying one word when the intent is to suggest the opposite term. We say "Black Angus" when we mean our luxury and prerogative as white consumers to stipulate the provenance of our food and drink, when most of us don't have the foggiest idea of or background in the corresponding fields. We don't know if Black Angus beef is better, we just know we're told it is. We know, most importantly, that our choice sets us apart from those who cannot choose--though who exactly that is might be questionable, as Black Angus beef has since trickled down to McDonald's.

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Inburbing and The War on Wealth

As I write, I'm sitting at Stone Creek Coffee in Bay View, where a large-scale bicycle race is taking place outside. Fittingly, my topic this weekend is the two megatends from which, I'd argue, most everything else discussed on this blog follows. These are what I will call "Inburbing" and "The War on Wealth". Inburbing is the effort to attract more-affluent white consumers--particularly the most profitable subgroups, single young people and empty nesters--to urban and inner-ring suburban areas that would otherwise lay fallow and underutilized from an economic perspective. This effort requires not so much products and services as a state of mind.

Interestingly, the psychological technique used to reach more-affluent white consumer is what I think of as "Black Angus"--saying one word when the intent is to suggest the opposite term. We say "Black Angus" when we mean our luxury and prerogative as white consumers to stipulate the provenance of our food and drink, when most of us don't have the foggiest idea of or background in the corresponding fields. We don't know if Black Angus beef is better, we just know we're told it is. We know, most importantly, that our choice sets us apart from those who cannot choose--though who exactly that is might be questionable, as Black Angus beef has since trickled down to McDonald's.